Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican government will proceed with a forensic audit of the accounts of flag carrier Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) for the last ten years, to be completed within six months, an official source from the executive told Lusa on Wednesday.
“The government will request a forensic audit of LAM’s accounts for the last 10 years and move forward with restructuring the company. The audit must be completed by October,” explained the source, also acknowledging that it will be necessary to “reduce the number of employees” at the flag carrier, currently around 800, given its reduced fleet of only four aircraft at present.
The President of Mozambique said on 28 April that there are “foxes and corrupt people” within the state-owned LAM, with ‘conflicts of interest’ that are preventing the restructuring of the company.
When presenting the results for the first 100 days of government, the Mozambican head of state, Daniel Chapo, denounced people “with conflicts of interest” within the state-owned company, whose aim is to prevent LAM from “having its own aircraft”.
“One of the impact initiatives we had planned for these 100 days was the acquisition of three aircraft for LAM. However, when we decided that we would have at least three aircraft available before 100 days, we discovered that within LAM we were handing foxes to guard a henhouse, or cats to guard mice,” he said.
Chapo added that it is in the interests of these people that LAM ‘continues to lease aircraft because they earn commissions from aircraft leasing’ and that the Government, which decided on restructuring, had to “reorient the process, since it is important to look after the interests of the population and not the interests of individuals or groups”.
On 5 February, the government authorised the sale of 91% of the state’s stake in LAM to state-owned companies, indicating that the proceeds would be used to purchase eight aircraft.
The resolution approved by the Mozambican executive stipulates that only three state-owned companies – Hidroelétrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM) and Empresa Moçambicana de Seguros (Emose) – may acquire the state’s stake in LAM.
The country’s president promised a broad restructuring of LAM, including human resources, promising Mozambicans a new phase for the flag carrier.
Daniel Chapo stated that, in the context of the process relating to the acquisition of the three aircraft, “people left Mozambique with money from the new shareholders and spent 15 days in Europe inspecting aircraft, only to return to Mozambique and say that they had not been able to inspect a single aircraft, which makes no sense and is illogical”.
“When we discovered that there was a den of corrupt people within our company (…) we decided to cancel the tender, restructure the company and clean it up with competent people who want to work for the Mozambican people,” he concluded.
LAM has been facing operational problems for several years related to a reduced fleet and lack of investment, with some non-fatal incidents reported, which experts have linked to poor aircraft maintenance.
The recurring problems at the flag carrier, including constant flight cancellations, led to the hiring of South African company Fly Modern Ark (FMA).
The contract ended on 12 September 2024 and had been in force since April 2023, when FMA was called in to implement a strategy to revitalise the company after years of operational problems, which experts attributed to inefficient aircraft maintenance.
When FMA took over the management of the company, it acknowledged that LAM had an estimated debt of around US$300 million (€269 million at the current exchange rate).
In April, the Mozambican public prosecutor announced the opening of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the signing of the agreement between FMA and the Mozambican authorities to restructure the state-owned LAM. It added that the investigation into alleged corruption in ticket sales, for which no official suspects have yet been named, is ongoing, with the aim of identifying the ownership of the automatic payment terminals used in sales, assessing losses and identifying those responsible.
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